


Ashes of Finaqua

by deslea



Category: Tin Man (2007)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-24
Updated: 2016-10-24
Packaged: 2018-08-24 09:31:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,785
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8367205
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deslea/pseuds/deslea
Summary: Azkadellia, Zero, and Lavender are uncomfortable housemates at Finaqua. Resolution eludes them all.





	

**Zero**

"The problem with former queens is that there isn't really anything useful to do with them after their reign is over."

Zero says this as he looks out over the gardens, where Lavender sits on her swing by the lake. It is her he means, not Azkadellia, but it could apply equally to either.

"Mother is useful," Azkadellia demurs. "The benevolent retiree, with a calendar full of community engagements. She's exactly what an abdicated queen should be. Apolitical and beloved."

Zero had the privilege of freedom, briefly, after the witch's downfall, and he has seen more of the populace than Azkadellia. Privately, he thinks that Lavender is far less beloved than Azkadellia supposes.

Lavender knows the truth of it, though. He thinks that's why she comes here so often, now. He thinks it's why she sits there on her swing, lovingly restored with the rest of the place. She has become her own real-life hologram, repeating the loop, over and over, hoping that this will be the day that she does something…something _else._

Azkadellia's abdication was a given after the eclipse, of course. But her abdication had left the royal advisors with a new problem. It was a problem they pondered and argued about as the eclipse waned and dawn rose over the O.Z. The throne would, in the normal order of things, have reverted to Lavender, but Lavender's rule had become untenable. A queen conquered is a queen whose fitness to rule is forever in question.

So Lavender had abdicated too, D.G. was crowned, and there was peace in the land. Alleluia.

Except that meant her subjects now felt free to question the part that Lavender had played in their decade of tyranny. Why not use her light to save her eldest daughter the very day it began? Why not use the emerald to protect them all much sooner? Why had the royal family, for millennia, allowed the witch to slumber unguarded in the cave at all?

Why, indeed. Zero can write some of it off to indecision and blind hope of finding another way, but only some. The bald, unsavoury fact is that both parents had written off Azkadellia from the moment the witch had taken her. They had invested all their magic and hopes and schemes in D.G., and it was only sheer dumb luck that Azkadellia came out of it alive at all. And while the citizenry has only muted sympathy for Azkadellia, they know abandonment when they see it. What of the five annuals before Azkadellia took power, they whisper, where was her mother then? Where was her father? Why was he not scouring the lands for a power to defeat the witch who had made a hostage of their eldest daughter and rightful heir?

And so she sits on that same damned swing, waiting for something to change, while her daughter is right here in the same damned house with her, as abandoned as she ever was. They drift together, two unseated queens, bound unhappily together by the witch, bound to the place where it all began.

It is his home, too, now, but if he had his way, Finaqua would be razed to the ground. He would burn it for Azkadellia all over again, if she asked. Just to give her something…something _else._

Perhaps Lavender isn't the only one in a loop, after all.

 

* * *

 

**Azkadellia**

Being loved by Zero is a little like being loved by a rabid wolf. 

He'll fight for you, oh yes. But there won't be many sweet words along the way, and the few that are will come out in spits and growls.

Also, you have to mind the claws.

Zero has worked manfully to hide his dislike of her mother, not least because it is her mother to whom they owe his life. But Zero has a default bearing of disdain that he barely even suppresses for people he _likes_ , so it was always going to be a losing battle.

Also, people he _likes_ is currently a cohort of, well, her. The handful of others were all executed in the purging of her government.

"Forget about Mother," she says. When Zero begins the day watching her mother, he ends it in a filthy mood, and they live in close enough quarters that she'd rather he didn't. "Come and have breakfast."

"Yes, Princess," he says, turning away from the balcony doors. He says it the way he used to say _Sorceress._

Obediently, he comes and sits at the table with her. He pushes around his eggs on his plate without interest, but it is not in him to disobey her, even in minor matters. He is not a good man, and never has been, but he _is_ loyal. 

Unlike her, Zero is under house arrest. His penchant for torture in excess of his orders, combined with his bad habit of leaving photographic proof, had earned him a death sentence, commuted to life imprisonment at the Queen's pleasure. 

The Queen's pleasure translates, essentially, to life in Azkadellia's service. Mostly because his presence lets everyone else off the hook. Anytime anyone isn't sure what to say to her, what to do with her, they can console themselves that she's all right. After all, she has Zero to look after her.

Her own situation is more complicated. She is technically free to come and go, but her movements are politely monitored. It was an undertaking made to parliament in their first sitting week after D.G. took the throne. And she has no desire to see the citizens she terrorised, who even now are still rebuilding their lives. The feeling is mutual.

His role is ill-defined; he is a companion of sorts. To put it perfectly baldly (which no one ever does), his role is to fill the place in her life that would be taken by her husband, if she had one. She doesn't, and never will. Even if someone were sufficiently self-destructive to seek her hand, she would never agree. But Zero's life is already forfeit. He is possibly the only person in the kingdom whose lot is bettered, rather than worsened, by being at her side. Since a fair bit of blame for his circumstances lies with her in the first place, it seems only fair.

"What would you like to do today, Zero?" she wonders, when she judges that he has eaten all that he means to.

"Whatever you like, Princess," he says. He means it. He has no love for Finaqua, restored or not, and he passes the time here pleasantly, but without any great joy. 

As always, she feels pulled two ways at once when he says it. She feels warmth, because he is all that is hers anymore; she feels cold, because his choices are gone. He loves her, she thinks, to the extent that he loves anyone. But he loves her the way you love an unwanted pet with which you have been burdened, by deciding to make the best of it.

But if the choice were his to make, he would choose something…something _else._

And that means he isn't really hers at all.

 

* * *

 

**Lavender**

Zero doesn't like her, and that is why she likes him.

He is, she thinks, the only completely truthful person in the whole of the O.Z., the only one who doesn't veil his judgment and dislike behind pretty words and deferential smiles. 

There is a change in the air pressure around him. She breathes out all the tension, all the ways that she holds herself in painful poise, and breathes in real air for the first time in forever. It is acrid and sour with her regrets and sins, but it is so much lighter than the air she breathes with everyone else. Her failures seem to become life-sized and grey - horrible, yes, but better than their fathomless blackness when she fights to keep them at bay. 

Zero is someone with a uniquely honest grasp of his own nature, and that gives him an excellent grasp on hers. He knows exactly what she is, neither worse nor better. She is not good, she is not evil. It was so much simpler than that. It was just stone cold fear and utter surrender when faced with her ancestors' fabled, monstrous foe. The idea that she could have fought the witch for Azkadellia had never even entered her head. 

So she isn't evil, no matter what her subjects ( _former_ subjects) may think. She is simply weak, and her weakness has wrought more destruction than evil could ever have done. And Zero sees it, sees _her_ , in all her mundane and insignificant smallness.

There is relief, she thinks, in being known for what she is. Even if he despises her for it.

He could be good for Azkadellia, in a way that she and Ahamo and D.G. cannot. He is the only one who has never cut and run, the only one who could look on what Azkadellia was, and what she is, and look away from neither. 

He isn't a good man, but he is a good man for Azkadellia. And there is so little goodness that the world has left to give her.

And so she sits here, waiting. Waiting for them to find one another. They are lovers, but not _lovers_ , and she sits here, waiting for them to become something…something _else._

She will never truly reconcile all the ways she has failed her daughter, but if she can give her Zero, she thinks perhaps she can learn to live with it.

It isn't enough, but it's all there is.

 

* * *

 

**Zero**

He wishes Lavender would get off the goddamned swing and let him have his memories in peace.

It burns him, that she sits there, knowing what it is. It burns him that she took it from his thoughts and stole it like a thief. Azkadellia doesn't know, and that is a mercy, he supposes, but in some ways that just makes it worse.

The official story is that he was arrested on the outskirts of Central City. In reality, he was arrested after breaking into the royal apartments. No one wanted such a spectacular security failure made public; his endorsement of the official story was a condition of his death sentence being commuted.

He'd been dragged before Lavender and D.G. Lavender was still queen then; the decision to abdicate had been made, but not yet announced and enacted. They had suspected him of conspiring to restore Azkadellia to the throne; that was where Raw came in.

"What does he want?" Cain had demanded.

"Loves Azkadellia," Raw had said after a long moment. "Afraid she will be killed."

Zero had narrowed his eyes, seething at the thought of _Cain_ knowing something like that. It was intolerable. He'd scowled and looked away from the mirror, away from the naked thoughts it displayed, cursing them all.

"Does he mean us harm?" D.G. demanded. In matters of loyalty, D.G. had more brains than the rest of them put together.

Raw shook his head. "No. Unless Azkadellia hurt. Then…enemy."

Lavender had pushed forward then. "Leave. All of you except Raw. I will review his memories, and decide what to do." In the face of murmured protests, she'd silenced them with a steely, "I am still the queen."

"What makes you think you have any right to memories of her?" he'd spat when they were alone. (Alone, that is, unless you counted Raw, but Zero didn't). "I won't give them to you. You'll have to take them by force."

"So be it," Lavender had said grimly, and she did.

 

* * *

 

**Azkadellia**

She wishes her mother would get off the goddamned swing and let her have her memories in peace.

Finaqua is the one piece of destruction from her reign that she wishes had stayed that way. In their destruction of Finaqua, she and the witch had had a rare moment of union of purpose. It was a place of destruction for them both.

Zero had burned it for her; he'd loved her even then. He hadn't known why it mattered, but he knew it mattered to her, and for Zero, that was reason enough.

He'd fallen for her the way an older, jaded soldier sometimes did for the young queen who ruled him. It wasn't in a man like Zero to love in equal measure. Usually, he would love less, would be the one who did the taking and the leaving, and from all accounts, that was how he loved both his wives before her. But occasionally, he would love more, would adore the woman he venerated above himself and everything he knew. 

And so it was with her. He'd fallen hard and ferocious. His love had heat and anger and claws ready to defend her. He'd fought for her and he'd have died for her. For both the witch and Azkadellia, it had been a heady combination. The witch had craved pleasures of the flesh after millennia denied; Azkadellia had craved release from the war inside her mind.

In Zero, too, then, they had union of purpose.

She supposes that was why, at Finaqua, she could be very nearly herself. At Finaqua, the witch rarely needed to make her do anything she wouldn't have done of her own accord. And that included Zero.

"Sorceress," he'd said as she watched it burn, trembling with gratitude. Heat rolled off the flames in waves. 

"What is it, Zero?" she wondered. Golden light washed over his skin; it made her want to reach out and touch it.

"Did someone hurt you here? Is that why you had me do this?"

She'd set her jaw grimly, but said nothing.

"I'll hurt them a hundredfold for you," he'd hissed. "You just need to say the word."

She'd turned to him then, her eyes and mind swimming with a sudden, shocking torrent of tears that she hadn't even known were there. They were on her so fast that even the witch couldn't push them back, and they'd driven her to him in deep, molten kisses.

"I know you would," she'd whispered. "I know that, Zero."

He hadn't questioned it, or her. He'd just taken her, overwhelmed and claimed her, there in the ashes of what she was and what she had become.

And there in the ashes, the cold in her bones had finally lifted, for a while.

 

* * *

 

**Lavender**

She wishes she could get off the goddamned swing and live her life in peace.

There is a life waiting for her, she knows. Ahamo and D.G. are waiting for her in Central City; they will welcome her with open arms. The citizenry is more forgiving of her there, or at the very least, worldly enough to pretend to be. She will be received kindly, and allowed a quiet life of love and contentment.

But she has not earned her contented retirement just yet.

She does not yet know her role. There are questions between Zero and Azkadellia that need answers before either can begin to live, but she does not yet know how to answer them, or even quite what those questions are.

Well, that isn't quite true. She knows the question for Zero, but not the answer. And for Azkadellia, she doesn't know even that much. 

Even if she _did_ know, helping them is another matter entirely. They are polite acquaintances at best, nodding in passing in the palace they share. Zero is mortified by how much she knows of him, and he gives her a wide berth.

Well, no matter. She isn't here to be loved, or even liked. That ship sailed long ago. She is here to lead them to the answers they need, however she can, however they will let her. And she will start with the only question she knows, the one she stole from Zero's angry, wounded mind.

She prays the answer is the one he needs.

 

* * *

 

**Zero**

He looks up from the table to Lavender with an arched eyebrow of surprise.

"Vapours?" he queries. "Isn't that a little illegal for your tastes?"

"A misdemeanour only," Lavender replies. "Besides, what are they going to do, sentence you to death?"

"Why, Mother," Azkadellia smirks, "you lawbreaker, you. I didn't know you had it in you." 

There is real humour in her voice, a rarity even now, and it warms him to hear it. That makes him, perhaps, more tolerant of Lavender's hamfisted peace offering than he might otherwise have been.

"I thought we could all do with a night of letting our hair down," Lavender says. "This place is like a mausoleum."

It hovers on Zero's lips to suggest that it is mostly a mausoleum to Azkadellia's hopes and dreams, but he settles for a more diplomatic, "Nothing a bit of music can't fix. Why not?"

Soon, he is pleasantly stoned.

"You remind me of me and Ahamo, you know," Lavender says on their fourth bottle of wine. "He was stuck here, just like you, Zero. But he never complained. He just looked around, saw what there was, and made the best of it. That's all any of us can ever do in life, really."

Azkadellia rolls her eyes. "That's hardly the same thing, Mother. Daddy had a whole kingdom of women to choose from. You basically got Zero into my bed at gunpoint."

"I got him to Finaqua at gunpoint," Lavender says tartly. "You got him into your bed all by yourself."

Zero winces. "Ladies, really. Can we talk about something else?"

"And anyway," Lavender goes on, ignoring him, "it was his choice to come back for you in the first place. My men weren't even looking for him until he broke into the palace."

Azkadellia frowns. "What are you talking about?" Then, turning to Zero, she demands, "What is she talking about?"

Zero feels a small twinge of satisfaction that Azkadellia trusts him more than she trusts her mother.

Lavender blinks, leisurely. Her reaction time is slowed by the vapours. "You didn't tell her?"

He stares stupidly at her. "You told me not to tell anyone. On pain of death, actually."

"Well, I didn't mean Azkadellia!"

Zero's eyes narrow. He says witheringly, "You might have mentioned that."

Azkadellia is looking back and forth, from him to Lavender and back again. "Wait, wait, wait. Are you saying he broke _into_ the palace to look for me?" She stares at Zero. "Did you do that? Why would you do that? Surely you knew what you were risking!"

It is always Zero's instinct, given a choice, to answer the easier question. "Of course I knew."

Unfortunately, that leaves the harder one for Lavender. "My Azkadellia, why do you think?"

Azkadellia says in exasperation, "Oh, _honestly,_ Mother, love isn't the answer to _every_ question. Stop being so bloody sentimental."

"It's the answer to every question that matters," Lavender says serenely. "Just ask Zero. Ask him, sometime, what he broke in to ask you."

He snarls her name like an obscenity, pushes back from the table, and storms drunkenly away.

 

* * *

 

**Azkadellia**

"The life of the party has gone to bed, but I brought more vapours. They're better company than she is, anyway."

Zero looks up from the swing with a grunt of grudging thanks, and rises. "My lady," he says ironically.

With slight mental effort on her part, the swing becomes wider. "There's room for us both." She sits, making room, and he sits back down beside her.

"Are you going to ask?" he wonders after a while.

"Do you want me to?"

"I'm not afraid of the question. I'm afraid of the answer."

It occurs to her that she has never really known him to be afraid of anything at all. But then, she had never known him to be prone to fruitless gallant gestures, either, so maybe she doesn't know him as well as she thinks.

"What was the question?" she says at last.

He stares straight ahead. "Was it love, or was it rape?"

It was both, in a way, she thinks. Without the witch, she would have rejected the darkness inside him. But she will never say so. Not when he loves her despite all the darkness inside her. And she was as willing as she could ever have been with anyone.

"It was love," she says, and it isn't the whole truth, but it's the only truth that matters.

 

* * *

 

**Lavender**

She wakes with a heavy head and a nasty case of Vapour Vertigo.

She makes her way down to the gazebo, more out of habit than any real desire to be there, and comes to a halt as she enters. She stares stupidly at the scene before her.

Azkadellia and Zero are there, curled up together, fully dressed (although a little dishevelled). Their clothes smell of stale vapour and booze. Beside them are the remains of a small campfire made up of sticks and twigs and-

"You burnt my _swing!_ " she says indignantly.

Zero opens his eyes lazily. "You spend too much time there anyway."

"But - but - why on earth did you burn my _swing?_ "

Azkadellia sits up, wincing a little at the light. "Well, he _wanted_ to burn the whole of Finaqua. Didn't you tell me compromise was the heart of every relationship?"

Lavender frowns with the effort of thought in the face of her hangover. She demands, like a petulant little child, "But where am I going to _sit?_ " 

"Central City," Azkadellia says firmly. "It's time. Your vigil of penance, or whatever this is, is done."

It washes over her like a shock of cold water.

"But Azkadellia-"

Azkadellia forestalls her. "Things are as good here as they're going to get, at least for the moment. So go and rebuild with Daddy, and let us do the same."

Zero sits up, too. "She's right. You can spend your whole life waiting for something to change. _Living_ it is what makes it change."

Lavender arches one supremely surprised eyebrow. "Zero, the philosopher?"

"Hey, you were the one who brought the vapours."

There is an odd warmth in his voice, and it takes her a while to put her finger on just what it is.

As they walk back into the house for breakfast, it dawns on her that, grudgingly, he likes her after all.

 

* * *

 

**Epilogue**

They wonder, sometimes.

She wonders if he really loves her, or just the memory of who she was.

He wonders if she really loves what he is, or just the way he loves her.

But whatever Lavender thinks, not every question needs to be asked, or answered. 

Sometimes, it is better to let them be, and live.

END


End file.
